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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368739">Erring Star</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/pseuds/La%20Reine%20Noire'>La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire &amp; Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blackfyre Rebellion Era, Canonical Sibling Incest, F/M, Female Friendships, Major Character Injury, POV Minor Character, Pre-Canon, Targaryens being Targaryens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:13:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death, Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,158</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368739</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/pseuds/La%20Reine%20Noire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Shiera Seastar attends four weddings and one funeral.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brynden "Bloodraven" Rivers/Shiera Seastar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>91</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Erring Star</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmiwrites/gifts">cosmiwrites</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title is a phrase used several times in Christopher Marlowe’s <i>Doctor Faustus</i> to refer both to moving planets mistaken for stars, and to the title character, an academic who sells his soul to the Devil for magical powers and goes to hell at the end of the play. To Cosmi, I just fell in love with <a href="%E2%80%9D">your Shiera and Bloodraven art</a> and was trying to capture that dynamic in this story. I hope you enjoy it, and my deepest apologies for how late this is. Thanks so much to crossingwinter for beta-reading!</p><p>Edit (27.03.2020): Cosmi has made <a href="https://cosmiart.tumblr.com/post/612128185071632384/they-pull-me-away-from-this-world-with-only-you">beautiful art</a> for this fic! You can also find it at the very end of the story.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>D</em>
  <em>aemon Blackfyre and Rohanne of Tyrosh</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Year 184 after the Conquest</em>
</p><p> </p><p>They said her mother was the most beautiful woman in the known world, a vision with silver-gilt hair and eyes blue as the Summer Sea. Some said she was a maid barely flowered when the Lord Jon Hightower brought her across the Narrow Sea to present to his king. Others said she was a witch, centuries old, whose youthful beauty sprang from the darkest of magics. Neither of these was true.</p><p> </p><p>“Men will find whatever excuse they can to call a woman a witch,” the newly crowned Queen Myriah told Shiera when she asked. “Your mother was beautiful and foreign, and she was thought to control the old king. That was reason enough.”</p><p> </p><p>“Will they call me a witch too?” asked Shiera. Even at four years old, she had seen the servants staring at her, whispering. The old king had just died, so it seemed everyone was whispering about something.</p><p> </p><p>For a moment, Queen Myriah studied her in silence. Then, she reached out and tilted Shiera’s chin upward so their eyes met. “I suspect they will, sweetling. But that is their foolishness, not yours. Try not to let them plant it in you. These thoughts grow like unweeded gardens if you let them.”</p><p> </p><p>She did not fully understand at the time, but it took only few weeks in the court of King Daeron, Second of his Name, to make things clear to Shiera, and to confirm that she wanted nothing to do with it. The Brackens hated the Blackwoods, the old king had hated his own son, and everybody, it seemed, hated the Dornish. People would say things around children all the time, as though they couldn’t hear.</p><p> </p><p>Queen Myriah walked amongst the whispers every day, her face an unreadable mask, but Shiera had seen her cling to one of her ladies and weep once the doors were shut, then caution them to say nothing to the king or their four sons. <em>I would rather know what is whispered of me than not, but I will not trouble His Grace with petty trifles</em>. And yet she found time for Shiera quite often, and at least twice a week, Shiera would have a visit from the queen’s chief lady-in-waiting, Lady Alceste Dayne. Lady Alceste would quiz her on her lessons and ask her how she was faring. She was younger than Queen Myriah, and always wore gowns in shades of violet that brought out her lovely eyes. But what struck Shiera most was that she <em>listened</em>. She wasn’t simply waiting for Shiera to finish speaking.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera started telling Lady Alceste everything she’d heard each day, even if she didn’t understand it. “Mostly people talk about Lord Daemon’s wedding. They don’t like that he’s marrying a Tyroshi girl.”</p><p> </p><p>“Another foreigner, for shame,” said Lady Alceste with a sharp laugh. “It was the old king who arranged that match; King Daeron had nothing to do with it.”</p><p> </p><p>They said much and more of Daemon Blackfyre. Shiera had only seen him from a distance, but the way men spoke of him made him sound like the hero of a song. Like her, he was a bastard child of the old king, only his mother had also been a Targaryen, which meant she was nothing like Daemon in truth.</p><p> </p><p>“We should find you a hobby other than eavesdropping,” Lady Alceste observed. “After this damned wedding is over and we have our lives back.”</p><p> </p><p>The wedding itself was dull, too many people crowded into the royal sept, and even the bride’s gown failed to capture Shiera’s interest. Everyone else seemed very keen, however, so she focused on listening.</p><p> </p><p>“...Tyrosh, at least, has goods worth trading for...”</p><p> </p><p>“...a fine figure of a young man, pure Targaryen.”</p><p> </p><p>“They say your mother was a witch.” Shiera turned her head so quickly her braid whipped against her cheek. The boy was older than her, with hair of pure white and skin almost as pale. His eyes, when she saw them, were as red as the birthmark that climbed from his throat across his cheek. “I wondered if that would catch your attention.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s just a stupid rumour,” said Shiera, remembering Princess Myriah’s words. “Men only call women witches because they’re scared of them.” He gave a snort of laughter but she kept her face perfectly straight. “Besides, witches aren’t real.”</p><p> </p><p>“They are so,” he replied. “I’ve met one.”</p><p> </p><p>Some part of Shiera wanted him to go away, to leave her to her listening. But this was more interesting than the stupid wedding. “Where did you meet her?”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a hill in the Riverlands they call High Heart. It was sacred to the children of the forest thousands of years ago, before an Andal king cut down their weirwood grove and slaughtered them when they protested. They say it’s still haunted today.”</p><p> </p><p>A shiver of delight ran down Shiera’s spine. “Did she talk to you? The witch?”</p><p> </p><p>“She <em>looked</em> at me, as though she could see right through my skin to my bones.” He’d lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “And she said, ‘You’ve been marked by the gods, child, for greatness and for sorrow’.” He touched the birthmark on his cheek. “She said she would see me again when I was a man grown.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera peered at the birthmark. “It looks a bit like a bird.”</p><p> </p><p>Another brief smile. “She’d probably say you’ve been marked too.”</p><p> </p><p>“Me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Your eyes.” On reflex, Shiera raised her hands to her face. “Have you seen them?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera frowned. Without another word, the boy took her hand and led her to a nearby alcove. There was an altar to the Maiden, and below it, a tall basin of water. “Look into the water,” he instructed.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera peered down and saw a face looking back up at her. It was small and heart-shaped, framed by a fall of pale hair. She caught her breath. One of her eyes was deep blue, the other the green of summer leaves. “Nobody told me,” she whispered. “It’s why people stare at me, isn’t it?”</p><p> </p><p>He nodded. For a moment, they stood silent, listening to the roar of conversation from the main part of the sept. Then, he asked, “Have you ever been to the library in the Red Keep?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera shook her head.</p><p> </p><p>He grinned. “I’ll find you during the feast and we’ll go.”</p><p> </p><p>By the time she next spoke to Lady Alceeste, Shiera had found a new hobby.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Daenerys Targaryen and Maron Martell</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Year 187/188 after the Conquest</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The Lady Serenei had arrived at court with a train of some eight Lysene maids and two beautiful boys, who, upon her death, scattered to the brothels of King’s Landing or, for those who could afford passage, back to Lys. Less obvious were the servants. One was a woman named Ysetta, who had served Lady Serenei for nigh on ten years before her death, and had remained in the Red Keep to tend to her child. Queen Myriah had offered Ysetta gold and a place to live in the city once Shiera was old enough to leave the nursery; while Ysetta took the offered plot of land and had a small cottage and garden built, she remained in the Red Keep all the same. <em>Someone must teach her what her mother could not</em>, was her only explanation, and after Ysetta nursed young Prince Aerys through a worrisome fever, the Queen gave her a place in the royal household, much to the offence of the Grand Maester.</p><p> </p><p>She soon began to teach Shiera the tricks of herblore, setting her first to chop and mix under supervision, but as her skills grew, so did Ysetta’s confidence in her student. Before long, Shiera was responsible for mixing and bottling potions and simples that Ysetta sold to the ladies of the court for a tidy profit. Remedies for headaches and digestive troubles, rinses to lighten or darken the hair, love potions and, to avoid the consequences, tansy tea and things stronger than that. But the greatest thing Ysetta offered was that she asked no questions. The Grand Maester railed against her in the Small Council until Lord Butterwell lost his temper and informed him that if he couldn’t control a Lyseni chambermaid, mayhaps they ought to find themselves a new Grand Maester.</p><p> </p><p>(That, Shiera heard from Brynden, though it would take several more years for her to learn how he had overheard it in the first place.)</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t blame Lord Butterwell for being short-tempered. He’s been planning this wedding for more than a year, but the new sept <em>still</em> isn’t finished and the Dornish flagship was spotted this morning near the Gullet.”</p><p> </p><p>The king’s young sister Princess Daenerys was to marry Queen Myriah’s younger half-brother Prince Maron Martell, heir to the Dornish throne. The newlyweds would remain in King’s Landing for another fortnight of tourneys, feasting, and politics before they travelled south along the Kingsroad through the Reach and the Stormlands back to Dorne, which would then officially be part of the Seven Kingdoms.</p><p> </p><p>Queen Myriah had been spending extra time with Princess Daenerys these past few weeks, as she said farewell to her home. Lady Alceste told Shiera that, for all her sympathy, Queen Myriah could not understand what the princess could possibly miss about King’s Landing. <em>She hates it here. She can’t wait for the new palace to be completed</em>. Queen Myriah had shown Shiera a drawing of the palace, called Summerhall, and Shiera too was impatient to see it in person.</p><p> </p><p>Once the Myrish glaziers finished the glass dome of the Great Sept of Baelor, King Daeron was sending them to the Dornish Marches to install windows at Summerhall. About a fortnight ago, Brynden had convinced Maester Melaquin to tell them how glass was made, and he had instead disguised them and taken them from the Red Keep down to a small alley near the Street of Steel, where a friend of his made lumpy, ill-shaped bottles that looked nothing like the perfect goblets and flagons in the Red Keep.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera kept one of them in her room as a memento all the same. It had blue and green swirls in it, just like her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Between her lessons with Ysetta and her lessons with Maester Melaquin and Brynden, the next few days passed swiftly. The Dornish flagship arrived in King’s Landing, and Shiera stood with the rest of Princess Daenerys’ ladies as she greeted her husband-to-be.</p><p> </p><p>When Prince Maron stepped off the ship, a rush of whispering overtook the ladies surrounding Shiera. He was not quite as tall as the king, with black hair and dark eyes like the queen. <em>He looks like a pirate</em>, whispered Donella Hayford. <em>I wish he’d steal me away</em>, replied Meg Piper with a giggle, <em>you know what they say about Dornishmen</em>. As he made an elaborate bow over Princess Daenerys’ hand, he murmured something to her that made her cheeks turn pink while the queen rolled her eyes and Prince Baelor, who looked a great deal like his uncle, laughed.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera never learned what he’d said to her, but Princess Daenerys seemed less nervous from then on. She and her husband-to-be spent most of that evening’s banquet whispering together, and Shiera was certain she had not seen the queen look so happy as she did that night.</p><p> </p><p>The wedding ceremony went off as planned two days later, the glaziers having finished their work as the Dornish ship was entering Blackwater Bay. The Great Sept smelled of fresh plaster and flowers, and Princess Daenerys’ gown of pale blue samite seemed to glow in the sunlight streaming through the glass-and-crystal dome even before Prince Maron swept the bride’s cloak of flame-coloured silk over her shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>Daemon Blackfyre was not in attendance, as Lady Rohanne had gone into confinement for their third child. At least that was what Shiera had overheard and mentioned to Brynden, who laughed. “Daemon’s lucky that way. He puts off making decisions until they’re made for him. It’s how he’s always been.”</p><p> </p><p>“You think he stayed away on purpose?” asked Shiera. They were standing apart from the crowd, behind the altar to the Maiden, but even still she lowered her voice. “Because he doesn’t like the Dornish?” He was not the only lord who had absented himself from the wedding, and she had noticed—thanks to her lessons with Maester Melaquin—that many of those absent lords were from the Reach and the Stormlands, traditional enemies of the Dornish. As many and more were present, though, from the Hightowers of Oldtown to the Manderlys and Mormonts of the North.</p><p> </p><p>Brynden steepled his hands and spoke as though he were Maester Melaquin posing a question. “If a lord is invited to a royal wedding and does not attend, what should the king assume? That the lord is lazy, mayhaps, unwilling to travel or to put forth the effort. Not disloyal, but not useful either. That the lord is treacherous and intends him harm. Or—”</p><p> </p><p>“—the king could accept that the lord wished to stay with his family,” Shiera observed. Brynden was five years younger than Daemon, and had grown up at court with him. And Daemon was one of only a few who hadn’t laughed at Brynden for spending so much time with Shiera. <em>You’re being a good and loyal friend. Anyone who laughs at you for that clearly doesn’t have any friends</em>. “I’ve seen Daemon with his sons, and I’ve seen him with Lady Rohanne. I think he just wanted to be there when the baby was born.”</p><p> </p><p>“And if we find out afterward that the babe was born last week? Or a fortnight ago?”</p><p> </p><p>“What of it?” asked Shiera. “My mother died birthing me. There are reasons why a man might not wish to leave his wife in childbed.”</p><p> </p><p>He looked shamefaced. “I’m sorry, Shiera.”</p><p> </p><p>She shrugged. “I just think that you want to see treason. You’re as much the old king’s bastard son as Daemon is, and you’re not a traitor.”</p><p> </p><p>“Aegor—”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want to hear about Aegor,” Shiera said with a dramatic groan. “He isn’t even here. Can’t we pretend he doesn’t exist?”</p><p> </p><p>Brynden started laughing. To nobody’s surprise, Aegor Rivers, son of the old king and Lady Barbra Bracken, who hated the Dornish almost as much as he hated House Blackwood, was not in King’s Landing, and nobody missed him. As far as Shiera could tell, the only person who could tolerate Aegor, outside of his mother’s family, was Daemon Blackfyre, and in return, Aegor worshipped Daemon almost to the point of embarrassment.</p><p> </p><p>Of greater interest to both her and Brynden were King Daeron’s trueborn children, three of whom lived at court. Prince Baelor was seventeen and had recently moved to Dragonstone with his wife and son, but was of course attending the royal wedding. His younger brothers Aerys, Rhaegel, and Maekar also took lessons from Maester Melaquin, separately from Brynden and Shiera, but Aerys spent almost as much time in the Red Keep’s library as Brynden, so he had also learned to tolerate Shiera’s presence. When he discovered that, thanks to Ysetta, Shiera could speak and read Lyseni and Myrish dialects, she rose in his opinion and soon the three were contentedly sharing one of the massive study tables in the library, poring over volumes that, from the look of them, hadn’t been touched for years.</p><p> </p><p>Prince Aerys had a keen interest in anything to do with Old Valyria and the Rhoynar, claiming descent from the former through King Daeron and the latter through Queen Myriah. Unlike his brother Baelor, he had Valyrian colouring, but he lacked Baelor’s easy humour. Sometimes his younger brother Rhaegel would join them, reading romances quietly but feverishly in a corner. He was odd, but a sweet boy who seemed younger than her despite being four years older.</p><p> </p><p>He was greeting Princess Daenerys now and said something that made her laugh and hug him. “I hope she’ll be happy in Dorne,” Shiera said.</p><p> </p><p>“She’ll learn to be,” replied Brynden. “And if Prince Maron is anything like the queen, it won’t take long.” Shiera turned and smiled at him.</p><p> </p><p>The queen summoned her to her chambers later that afternoon, as everyone was preparing for the wedding banquet. One of her ladies was weaving thin golden chains and strands of tiny pearls through her hair when Shiera entered.</p><p> </p><p>“My dear Shiera,” said Queen Myriah, reaching for her hand. “I have something to ask you.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera bobbed a curtsey. “Yes, Your Grace.”</p><p> </p><p>“Would you like to accompany Princess Daenerys to Dorne, as one of her ladies? You are very young, but you’re clever, and I think you would do well in Dorne.” Shiera’s expression must have given her away, for Queen Myriah laughed. “Oh, come now, it’s not that bad!”</p><p> </p><p>“No...of course not, Your Grace,” Shiera corrected herself. “Thank you for asking me. I...don’t know.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s fine, my dear. You can take some time to think on it. But you’ll want to decide within the week so we can make any necessary arrangements.”</p><p> </p><p>When she next saw Brynden, it was at the banquet. She drew him aside and, under the cover of the music and feasting, told him what Queen Myriah had said.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you want to go to Dorne?” asked Brynden, his eyes pinning her as he spoke.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know,” replied Shiera truthfully. “I don’t know Princess Daenerys well, and she may not want me. After all, her mother was married to the old king—”</p><p> </p><p>“If the princess objected, the queen wouldn’t offer you a place with her,” Brynden interjected. “Besides, Queen Naerys had been dead for years before the old king took up with your mother, so if she objects to anybody, it wouldn’t be you.”</p><p> </p><p>“If you say so,” she allowed. “Lady Alceste says it’s awfully hot in Sunspear, and that’s where we would live. I’m not sure I’d like that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ysetta would like it there,” Brynden observed. “They have an entire town built of boats where people still worship the gods of the Rhoynar.”</p><p> </p><p>Although Ysetta had joined the Lady Serenei’s service in Lys, she had been born in a small market town along the Rhoyne River, and the language many of the servants in the Dornish embassy, and in the queen’s household, spoke was close to her mother tongue. And everything the queen said about Dorne made it sound like a wonderful place.</p><p> </p><p>“But you wouldn’t be there,” Shiera finally said, giving voice to what she hadn’t wanted to say. “I might never see you again. Sunspear is so far from here.”</p><p> </p><p>Brynden nodded. “That’s probably true. But you must also think of yourself and your future, Shiera. In Dorne, your birth won’t be a mark against you.”</p><p> </p><p>His words lingered for days afterward as Shiera tried to think of herself and her future. Prince Aerys showed her pictures of Sunspear and the Old Palace in books and told her tales of Dornish history, while Prince Rhaegel sat in silence as she talked through both sides and argued against herself. In the end, when she looked at him in frustrated defeat, he held her hand and told her that whatever decision she made would be the right one. “You’re sweet but that doesn’t help,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.</p><p> </p><p>She scarcely paid attention to the feasting and the tourneys. Daemon Blackfyre, despite his absence from the wedding, returned for the grand tourney only to lose to Prince Baelor in the final tilt. But toasts still rang out that night for his newborn daughter, Calla, and Ysetta made certain to send a basket of remedies for Lady Rohanne with the Blackfyre steward, as it was not something Lord Daemon was likely to remember on his own.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera looked around the Queen’s Ballroom, the haze of torches and music, the roar of laughter. Prince Baelor—who all the men were now calling ‘Breakspear’—flushed with victory, his arm around his wife, Lady Jena. The king and queen, hands clasped on the high table. Aerys looking sullen, clearly wishing he was in the library; beside him, Rhaegel, who had somehow managed to sneak a kitten into the banquet and was feeding it scraps from his plate. And one other silent face, watching as she was.</p><p> </p><p>As she looked at them all, Shiera knew she could not leave her family. When she told Queen Myriah the next day, she was surprised that the queen responded by hugging her close. “Selfish as it is,” she murmured, “you are the closest thing I have to a daughter now that Daenerys is leaving. But I wanted to give you the choice.”</p><p> </p><p>“I still want to go to Dorne someday,” Shiera admitted.</p><p> </p><p>Queen Myriah laughed. “Of course you do! And we will make certain that it happens.”</p><p> </p><p>As Shiera was leaving the queen’s chambers, a glint of green caught her eye. She picked up a small green stone from the floor rushes and turned it over in her hands. It was the same colour as one of her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Keep it,” said Lady Alceste from behind her. “May it be the first of many.”</p><p> </p><p>“What is it?” asked Shiera.</p><p> </p><p>Lady Alceste examined the stone. “It might be an emerald. I’ll ask Wylla Uller the next time I see her; she’s got an eye for these things.”</p><p> </p><p>The royal family would accompany the Dornish embassy as far as Tumbleton before returning to King’s Landing, but Brynden and Shiera remained in the city. As they stood on the battlements to watch the procession make its way toward the King’s Gate, Shiera held Brynden’s hand tightly.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure?” he asked her, one last time.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera smiled at him. Around her neck hung a silver chain and a pendant with a bright green stone in it. Not an emerald, it turned out, but a pretty piece of tourmaline. “I know where I belong.”</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Daemon Blackfyre</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Year 196 after the Conquest</em>
</p><p> </p><p>They brought the bodies of Daemon Blackfyre and his two sons to the Great Sept of Baelor to lie in state for a full seven nights before committing them to a funeral pyre in the plaza just outside the sept. As the silent citizens of King’s Landing watched, the flower of the Blackfyre line went up in flames.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera stood with Queen Myriah and her ladies, on the opposite side of the pyre from King Daeron and the four princes, two of whom had played vital roles in the so-called Battle of the Redgrass Field that the singers were already turning into ballads. Brynden’s role was no less important, if perhaps less savoury, and his absence caused whispers to flutter through the assembled guests. One was foolish enough to ask the king and received a tongue-lashing more reminiscent of the old king Aegon than Daeron the Good. Shiera had watched the encounter with grim amusement, having known full well that Brynden had stood vigil over the bodies every night since their arrival, from the hour of the wolf until dawn.</p><p> </p><p>She had found him there the night before, standing in a spill of moonlight before the statue of the Stranger. “How poetic of you,” she observed. “I ought to compose a sonnet.”</p><p> </p><p>“Shiera.”</p><p> </p><p>“Or perhaps a painting. <em>Death comes for Daemon Blackfyre</em>, a masterwork of light and shadow.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Shiera—</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“You already look half a corpse. What would you prefer, Brynden? How do you wish to be immortalized?”</p><p> </p><p>“It was the only way,” he said, so softly she could barely hear him. “So long as he lived, men would seek to put him on the throne. You <em>know</em> Daemon.”</p><p> </p><p>“Knew.” It was a low blow, but effective. “It didn’t need to be you, Brynden. You had an entire squadron of bowmen.”</p><p> </p><p>“Only one could strike true at that distance, and that only with help.” When he looked up at her, she could see the empty hollow of his left eye. “As I’ve stood here, I keep thinking of that moment, and every single time, I make the same choice.”</p><p> </p><p>“You did it for the king. For the realm.”</p><p> </p><p>“Aye, the man who serves the realm is blessed and the kinslayer is cursed. Which am I, Shiera?”</p><p> </p><p>“Both, as we all are.” She slipped her arms around his neck. “You are Brynden Rivers, and you are so many things. But what you are right now is a man who needs to sleep.”</p><p> </p><p>“He’s sleeping,” said Brynden, looking at the corpse. “I would say good night, sweet prince, but he was never a prince, for all his pretentions. And he certainly does not smell sweet.”</p><p> </p><p>Despite herself, Shiera laughed. “I think your vigil has gone on long enough. Much longer and you’ll start seeing snarks in the shadows.”</p><p> </p><p>The septon on duty gave her a grateful smile as she led Brynden out, and the great doors rumbled shut behind them. The Silent Sisters could do their work now for the final ceremony in the morning.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera had chosen to travel in a litter, having assumed that she would succeed in her plan to lure Brynden out of the Great Sept. The mood in the city was such that the sight of him might trigger a riot, or so Prince Baelor had warned. She gave quick instructions to the bearers and pulled the curtains tightly shut.</p><p> </p><p>When the litter halted and someone tugged at the curtain to signal their arrival, Brynden tensed. “This isn’t the Red Keep. We haven’t gone nearly far enough.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s not,” said Shiera impatiently. “Did you really think I was going to chance carrying you across the entire city in the middle of the night with only eight guards? How stupid do you think I am?” Before he could answer, she parted the curtains and stepped into the street. The litter had stopped in front of a gate guarded by two armed men, who stepped aside when they recognized her. Brynden followed unsteadily and she took his arm.</p><p> </p><p>After the gate had closed behind them, she said, “The queen gave this plot of land to Ysetta, who then left it to me when she died. I had the house rebuilt, but I built it around her garden.”</p><p> </p><p>The house was unassuming enough from the street—stone walls and the suggestion of greenery behind the gate. It sat at the corner of a sharply turning road on Visenya’s Hill, set further back than the house beside it. The walls were made partly of stone and partly of white plaster, and two small diamond-paned windows flanked the doors.</p><p> </p><p>The entryway was little more than a hooked corridor wide enough for two people, with a door at the end. But when Shiera opened the door, the rush of moonlight into the single room that served as bedchamber, study, and glass garden made her catch her breath. Outside the wall of glass was a larger outdoor garden riotous with herbs, flowers, and fruits. It had been the pride of Ysetta’s retirement from court, and she had insisted on bringing Shiera a basket full of whatever looked best to her once a week, until her joints were such that she could not make the journey.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera crossed to her worktable and retrieved what she’d prepared earlier that evening. “Valerian and chamomile, sweetened with honey. Sometimes the simplest thing is what you need.”</p><p> </p><p>He looked down at the bottle in her hand, a lumpy, misshapen thing with blue and green swirls in the glass. “You still have this?”</p><p> </p><p>“You remember it?”</p><p> </p><p>“Your obsession with glass started that day.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera smiled. “You do remember. Drink it. I promise, if I were going to poison you, I’d offer you something more tempting than a tisane.”</p><p> </p><p>Brynden’s hand closed around hers and he took the small bottle. He threw back the contents and swallowed.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera led him to the bed—golden oak posts and pale hangings embroidered in silver, blue, and green—and got his boots and doublet off before he slumped over from exhaustion. She managed to tug the shirt over his head and tuck him underneath the coverlet as his eyelids sank.</p><p> </p><p>She leant over him and brushed her lips across his temple. “If you can hear me, and I think you can, this is all I have to say to you,” she murmured. “Fuck off. Do you hear me? Leave him be. Let him sleep without dreams, let him <em>rest</em>. He’s done bloody well enough, so fuck off.”</p><p> </p><p>There was no reply, but she hadn’t expected one. Instead, Brynden slept for two full days, and she took that as her answer. She attended the funeral and listened to the whispers speculating on whose arrows it was that finished off Daemon and his sons. Then she went back to her life as it had become now that Ysetta had died and <em>someone</em> had to serve as herbwoman and confidante to the women of the court.</p><p> </p><p>She returned from the Red Keep on the third day to find him seated in her favourite spot in the garden, on a bench between the beds of rosemary and lavender. “Do you know what all of these plants are?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera nodded. “Ysetta taught me. I even planted some of them.” She pointed. “The jasmine on that post. Love potions and perfume.” It was her own preferred scent. The queen’s was Dornish orange blossom, and Lady Rohanne was partial to Tyroshi honeysuckle. “The chamomile you drank is also one of mine, as is the lavender in the bedsheets.”</p><p> </p><p>“I slept better than I had in months. I didn’t dream at all.” He sounded puzzled.</p><p> </p><p>“Good.” Shiera could feel him looking at her now. “You need <em>rest</em>, Brynden. Real rest. You may hide your thousand eyes from everyone else, but don’t insult me by trying to hide them from me.”</p><p> </p><p>He had the grace to look a little ashamed. “Who else knows I’m here?”</p><p> </p><p>“The king, the queen, and Prince Baelor,” replied Shiera. “The king informed the Small Council that you were not to be disturbed on pain of death, and I think they took him seriously.”</p><p> </p><p>“As they ought to have done all these years,” muttered Brynden.</p><p> </p><p>She placed her hands on his shoulders. “I mean it when I say you need rest, Brynden. Two days isn’t enough. You need to heal.”</p><p> </p><p>“Bittersteel escaped,” hissed Brynden. “I had him, Shiera, and then he pulled that damned knife out of the corpse beside him and he—” He raised one hand halfway to his ruined eye. Shiera covered it with both of her hands. “I had him,” he repeated softly.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera pulled him close and he clung to her with a shiver. After a moment, she said, “They lost the one who matters. The lords who fought and died on the Redgrass Field did it for Daemon, not for Aegor. He’ll run until he’s found, and then he’ll face the king’s justice. And none of that needs to involve you, unless your foolish feud demands it.”</p><p> </p><p>“My men?”</p><p> </p><p>“Prince Baelor saw to them when we arrived in the city,” she reminded him. The Raven’s Teeth were all billeted at the Red Keep now, enjoying the king’s grateful hospitality. Prince Baelor, the new Hand of the King after the death of Lord Hayford during the fighting, had taken charge after Brynden’s injury. “Your duty is to recover. And that’s an order from the king, not from me.”</p><p> </p><p>A brief smile lit Brynden’s face. “Only because he listened to you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then you do the same.” Shiera reached up and cupped his face with her hands. “Listen to me. Stay with me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Here?”</p><p> </p><p>“For a few more days. Then we go to Summerhall. Away from all of...this.” Prince Maekar’s wife would be there with her two young sons, but she was Lady Alceste’s niece and Shiera trusted her discretion.</p><p> </p><p>Brynden drew her closer and she found herself standing on tiptoe, her face inches from his. His single remaining eye met hers, black ringed in red. “You say <em>we</em>. Do you mean it?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera nodded. “With all my heart.”</p><p> </p><p>She had kissed Brynden before, but she was aware now as she never had been of something ending and something else beginning. <em>We are children no longer, if Brynden ever was</em>.</p><p> </p><p>His eyes had always seemed older, even before he saw Daemon Blackfyre’s treason in his dreams and gave King Daeron a warning he luckily chose to heed. Shiera had stood beside him that night less than a year ago in Maegor’s Holdfast, her fingers practically crushed in his, as he spoke of what he’d seen.</p><p> </p><p>“It was a prophecy brought House Targaryen to these shores and another that inspired Aegon’s Conquest. I make no claims to prophecy, Your Grace, but I swear that what I saw is true.” He stopped to catch his breath. “Daemon Blackfyre means to revolt against the crown. I have seen men acclaim him as King Daemon, First of his Name.”</p><p> </p><p>“Where?”</p><p> </p><p>Brynden had smiled then, briefly. “Stone Hedge. I saw the banners of House Bracken on the walls.” The Hand groaned. “Lord Butterwell, I do not say this as the son of Lady Melissa Blackwood; I say this as a loyal subject. Daemon Blackfyre is a rebel and a traitor, and he intends to claim the throne.”</p><p> </p><p>“Dreams,” muttered Lord Butterwell. “You call us all up in the dead of night for dreams? Your Grace, I must protest—”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s something else,” said the king. He was studying Brynden’s face. “You can tell me, Brynden. No harm will come to you.”</p><p> </p><p>Brynden glanced back at Shiera, who gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “The last time Daemon was here, he asked me if I was happy with the way things were at court. When I told him I was, he asked if I was sure, that I might not prefer that Dornish customs stayed in Dorne instead of...infecting us here.” Shiera could hear the effort it took for him to speak the words and squeezed his hand briefly. “He must have seen something in my face, because he stopped, and said no more.”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you think he was testing your allegiance?”</p><p> </p><p>“Now I do. At the time, I just thought it odd.”</p><p> </p><p>“Your Grace,” Shiera spoke up, and the king glanced at her as though noticing her for the first time. “I have a way to confirm what Brynden says.” Lord Butterwell made a contemptuous noise but the king silenced him with a glare before nodding for Shiera to continue. “The Lady Rohanne and I have an...arrangement that began when she and Lord Daemon lived at court. Once every moon’s turn, one of her servants pays me a visit to pick up her delivery, and in exchange for some extra silver, she has been telling me of the goings-on in her mistress’ chambers.” It was an arrangement Ysetta had had with a number of noble ladies in King’s Landing, and Shiera had inherited it too. “She should be here in the next several days. I can find out whether or not Daemon was in his castle tonight. I might even be able to find out where he was. Would that be enough to confirm Brynden’s story?”</p><p> </p><p>The king considered this for a moment, then nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Your Grace, this is madness!”</p><p> </p><p>“Mayhaps,” the king allowed, “but I would be sure. I am not Baelor the Blessed and I make no claim to know the will of the gods, but Brynden has never lied to me, and I see no reason why he would start now.”</p><p> </p><p>Lady Rohanne’s maid, Greta, was a sweet, chattering girl clearly dazzled by Shiera every time she visited. When she spotted the girl outside the gates, Shiera glanced at her prized looking-glass, added a dash of carmine to her lips, smiled, and answered the door. Within an hour, one of her guards was racing to the Red Keep, and Shiera bade a dazed Greta farewell with a lingering kiss that she suspected would overwhelm any other memories of the errand. The thrill was such that Shiera almost forgot that the reason for her spying was treason at the heart of the royal family.</p><p> </p><p>Within a moon’s turn, the fighting began. Shiera never saw Greta again. And now Daemon and his sons and thousands of others were dead. <em>For what? For Daemon’s pride and Aegor’s envy? Because men cannot stand the idea that the world must change and they with it</em>. She thought of Queen Myriah, proud and strong, shielding her sons from the worst of the whispers until they were old enough to fight back. Baelor and Maekar were the stuff of songs now. Brynden too, though a very different type of song.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you thinking?” murmured Brynden against her neck. “You promised to be here with me.”</p><p> </p><p>“I was with you, my love,” replied Shiera, before kissing him again. They spoke no more after that.</p><p> </p><p>Later, as the sun began to set, they watched from her bed with glasses of wine and strawberries from the garden. Brynden’s fingers had been toying with her hair, but soon brushed against the silver necklace curving about Shiera’s neck. “Am I imagining it, or are there more stones on this necklace than there were before?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera smiled. “It depends on when you last noticed it.” She had added a second chain, creating a small constellation of stones, all in shades of blue and green. Some were more precious than others, but each had a story, a life, captured in its facets.</p><p> </p><p>“Offerings from your conquests?”</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing so silly,” she replied. Taking his hand in hers, she touched his fingertip to the different stones. “This one was a gift from Prince Baelor and Princess Jena for assisting Ysetta at the birth of Prince Valarr. This, for nursing Quentyn Hightower through his illness two years ago. The blue topaz from Lady Alceste...”</p><p> </p><p>“What did you do for her?”</p><p> </p><p>“Was a paragon of discretion and didn’t give away her secrets,” she replied, kissing him. “And Princess Daenerys gave me this one,” she indicated a star sapphire of exceptional beauty that sat at the hollow of her throat, “after I delivered her daughter Deria during my visit to Sunspear last year.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve been busy.”</p><p> </p><p>“My life is my own.” Shiera let go of his hand and his fingers trailed downward from her necklace, raising gooseprickles on her bare skin that made her shiver delightfully. “Mmm, keep doing that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Marry me, Shiera,” said Brynden, his voice rough and uncertain. “I could make you happy. I could give you anything you wanted.”</p><p> </p><p>For a few moments, neither of them spoke. Brynden continued caressing her, but she scarcely noticed.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiera...” he ventured again.</p><p> </p><p>“Listen to me.” Shiera pressed her fingers to his lips. “I love you, Brynden. You have my heart, and you always will. I will share my bed with you, my thoughts, my secrets, and my life. But I will not take your name, I will not marry you, and I will not bear your children.”</p><p> </p><p>For a moment, he was silent. Then, against her hand, he murmured, “Why not?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera smiled and took another sip of wine before looking back at him. “Did I ever tell you what Ysetta told me of my mother before she died? I don’t know that I did; it was a month or two after Daemon rebelled, and you had far more important things on your mind.”</p><p> </p><p>Ysetta had been ailing for some time, and Shiera had even left the Red Keep for the better part of a week, sleeping on a pallet in Ysetta’s cottage and tending to her as the old woman had once cared for her.</p><p> </p><p>“Little Seastar,” whispered Ysetta from the bed, “it is time you knew the truth.”</p><p> </p><p>The tale she told had fragments that Shiera knew. The Lady Serenei Denarre had come of age as one of the fairest women in Lys but her family’s fortunes had dissolved, leaving her with few palatable choices. So, when Lord Jon Hightower offered her the promise of lands and income in exchange for some several months of distasteful service to his king, she agreed.</p><p> </p><p>Ysetta followed her mistress to King’s Landing and started her own tidy business selling potions and perfumes to the ladies of the court. All had gone according to plan until the Lady Serenei fell pregnant by misfortune—despite a regular dose of a potion that Ysetta had once made by the barrel for several pillow houses in Lys—and as Shiera grew within her, grim determination warred with despair. In the end, she asked Ysetta to care for her child and, above all, to make certain that she need never sell her body and her life for coin.</p><p> </p><p>“All of this is yours, my seastar,” Ysetta told her, gripping her hands tightly. “My debt to your mother is repaid, and you are my gift to the world.”</p><p> </p><p>When she took formal possession of the tiny plot of land on Visenya’s Hill, she signed her name <em>Shiera Seastar</em> for the first time, and it was as though a missing piece of her had fallen into place.</p><p> </p><p>“I know who I am for the first time,” she said to her lover now, trying not to see the hurt in his face. “Be happy for me, Brynden, and know that I am yours as I always have been.” Before he could argue, she kissed him.</p><p> </p><p>They left for Summerhall several days later, and he did not speak of marriage again.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Gwenys Rivers and Daven Honeyholt</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Year 201 after the Conquest</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Raventree Hall was watching her.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera felt it the second she passed beneath the gates, like a trail of gooseprickles across her skin. It was not <em>unfriendly</em>, but she nonetheless threw a disapproving look at the white weirwood branches she could see just beyond the timbered keep. Several ravens perched on the branches looked back at her, she imagined disdainfully.</p><p> </p><p>Ravens always seemed disdainful to her. Perhaps that was Brynden’s influence.</p><p> </p><p>After a moment, the feeling subsided a little. Shiera exhaled and urged her horse forward. They were here for the wedding of Brynden’s sister Gwenys to a younger son of one of House Blackwood’s bannermen, and it seemed as though they had been travelling for half an age. It was far less interesting in winter than the Roseroad in high summer.</p><p> </p><p>Gwenys was the youngest of Lady Melissa Blackwood’s three children by the old king, so she was also Shiera’s half-sister, but she had spent most of her life in the Riverlands, raised alongside her cousins at Raventree Hall. It had been shortly after Lady Melissa discovered she was with child that the now-deceased Lord Hugo Bracken dangled his younger daughter Bethany before the king, and by the time Gwenys was born, Bethany and her father had both lost their heads for treason. Shiera could hardly blame her for keeping her daughters from court, although King Daeron couldn’t be more different from his father.</p><p> </p><p>The woman waiting on the front steps of the keep was both smaller and rounder than she had expected, though in truth Shiera was unsure of what she expected. They still spoke fondly of Missy Blackwood at court, the kindest and merriest of Old King Aegon’s many mistresses, however uneasy they may have felt about her son.</p><p> </p><p>Ever since the end of Daemon Blackfyre’s ill-starred rebellion, Brynden’s reputation had grown increasingly sinister. Even though King Daeron had shown him nothing but favour, raising him to a lordship and giving him lands near Summerhall, rumours followed him like shadows. He and Prince Aerys still spent most of their time in the library, combing through tomes ordered up from the Citadel and delivered by cart every several weeks. Old tales and prophecies, the rise and fall of ancient empires, and always the higher mysteries of magic.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera’s name, too, had become known across the kingdom, in ways both foreseen and unforeseen. To men, she was a witch, a temptress, a prize to be sought and never won. They spoke of her unnerving beauty and the more foolish even claimed that the very battle of Redgrass Field had come down to Bittersteel and Bloodraven vying for her favour. (The same fools, no doubt, claimed that Daemon Blackfyre had rebelled for love of Princess Daenerys.)</p><p> </p><p>As always, the truth was far less dramatic. The door to Shiera’s house on Visenya’s Hill was always open and a steady stream of women—young, old, mothers, daughters, grand ladies, women of the city, septas, chambermaids, whores—paid her visits for all manner of ailments and advice. She had delivered more babes than she could count, and prevented even more from being born to mothers who could not care for them. The wealthier ladies paid her in gold and jewels; the women of the city in bread, eggs, soap, or nothing at all. She added another strand to her necklace every year, but only kept the jewels that had meaning. The rest she sold for coin.</p><p> </p><p>Shiera reached beneath her cloak and touched the necklace for luck before she dismounted. Brynden greeted his mother first, standing patiently while she hugged him close for far longer than he would have tolerated from anyone else.</p><p> </p><p>“Gods have mercy, do they feed you at all in King’s Landing? Every time I see you, Brynden, you look half a corpse.”</p><p> </p><p>“Mother, really,” he muttered, and Shiera stifled her laughter. The sound was enough to catch Lady Melissa’s attention. Brynden stepped back and took Shiera’s arm. “My mother, Lady Melissa Blackwood. Mother, this is...”</p><p> </p><p>“Shiera Seastar, I must assume,” his mother interjected, holding out her hand to Shiera. “My dear lady, the stories do not do you justice.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera opened her mouth and closed it, aware that Brynden was smirking at her. “You’re very kind, Lady Melissa,” she finally said.</p><p> </p><p>“Kind, yes, but also honest,” replied Lady Melissa. “Brynden will vouch for me. Now, get inside, all of you. No need to stand out here in the wet.”</p><p> </p><p>Her chambers and Brynden’s adjoined one another, rather to Shiera’s surprise. She mentioned it to him as they were preparing to join the family for dinner, and he shrugged. “This isn’t court. Nobody’s going to gossip if they see us together, because it doesn’t matter.”</p><p> </p><p>“Are you happy to be home?”</p><p> </p><p>“This was never my home,” replied Brynden. “Not really. Gwenys and Mya, yes, because they stayed with my mother while I went back to King’s Landing after the old king died.” He was silent long enough that Shiera made her way to his side. He slid his arm around her and she leant against him. “But the raven dreams started here. These were my old rooms, and that window over there,” he pointed to the far corner of the room, “is where a raven spoke to me for the first time.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera tried to imagine Brynden at six years old, talking with ravens in his dreams as though it were perfectly normal. “Are you all right? Being here?”</p><p> </p><p>He nodded. “They understand.”</p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t intended to make them late for dinner, but kissing him led in several far more pleasurable directions, and by the time they were decent again, it was well past the start of the second course. Gwenys Rivers, the very image of her mother, raised her glass as they entered, laughing. “I see you’re celebrating already, brother dearest. Well done.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well done, yourself, finding a man foolish enough to marry you,” retorted Brynden.</p><p> </p><p>“Brynden!” hissed his mother, as several others at the high table laughed uproariously. Clearly, Shiera thought, the wine was already flowing. “Sit by me, dear Shiera, and leave that ill-mannered son of mine to his cousins.”</p><p> </p><p>Despite the lurch of panic, Shiera did as she was bid and settled next to Lady Melissa, who promptly called for wine and served her a portion of duck in a mouth-watering berry sauce. Five courses later, Shiera was full to bursting with a head pleasantly spinning from the wine, and she accepted Lady Melissa’s offer of company for the walk back to her chamber.</p><p> </p><p>Lady Melissa led her down a corridor, up a flight of stairs, and along a covered balcony lit by guttering lanterns. The moon had emerged from behind the day’s clouds, and its light picked out the taloned branches of the enormous heart tree as they stretched impossibly high into the sky. Shiera found herself pausing, watching as a thousand black-winged shadows moved within the darkness. <em>A thousand eyes and one</em>. She shivered, not just from the chill in the air.</p><p> </p><p>“I remember your mother,” said Lady Melissa out of nowhere. “The Lady Serenei. Though I cannot claim to have known her well.” Shiera knew she was staring but did not care. “I had come to King’s Landing for Queen Naerys’ funeral—may she rest in peace, the poor lady—and I remember seeing her amongst the Hand’s retinue. You look very like her.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera was about to speak when Lady Melissa continued, “She had this companion...she dressed like a servant, but she didn’t behave like one...”</p><p> </p><p>“Ysetta,” said Shiera without thinking.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, that was her name! I don’t know what they called her in Lys, but here we’d call her a woods witch.”</p><p> </p><p>A shiver skittered down Shiera’s spine. “A woods witch?” she repeated stupidly. “She wasn’t a witch. Just a herbwoman.”</p><p> </p><p>“They say it of you too,” said Lady Melissa. She was studying Shiera with mild curiosity. “Of you and Brynden both. A sorcerer and a witch at the king’s right hand.”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course,” sighed Shiera. “That Brynden killed Daemon Blackfyre by sorcery because arrows are less interesting.”</p><p> </p><p>“Isn’t that what happened?” Lady Melissa eyed her for a moment before looking out at the darkness of the godswood. “What do you know of House Blackwood, Lady Shiera?”</p><p> </p><p>“A powerful house in the north-western Riverlands, sworn to Riverrun, whose seat is Raventree Hall,” recited Shiera as though she were ten years old with Maester Melaquin standing in front of her. “I know the sigil involves ravens and weirwood trees, which always struck me as strange because weirwoods are—”</p><p> </p><p>“—of the North,” Lady Melissa finished with her. “Exactly. House Blackwood ruled territory just north of Winterfell in the Age of Heroes, but the Kings of Winter drove them south when they took power. As for the ravens, Brynden has had those dreams since he was a boy. First, talking to ravens. Then seeing through their eyes. A mighty gift. He told me you were the reason the king believed him.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera opened and closed her mouth a few times before she was able to speak. “He gives me too much credit. I had information. I was able to confirm that Daemon Blackfyre was at Stone Hedge on the night that Brynden dreamt of his treason.” <em>Saw</em>. That was the word she wanted. “That Brynden <em>saw</em> his treason,” she corrected herself.</p><p> </p><p>The briefest of smiles lit Lady Melissa’s face, still beautiful after all these years. Brynden had that smile, rare as it was these days. Aside from his colouring, he looked remarkably like his mother. “If the king hadn’t known of the Blackfyre treason in advance, they may well have won.”</p><p> </p><p>“And Brynden didn’t sleep a full night for the better part of a year,” replied Shiera quietly. “He spent his nights chasing Daemon Blackfyre, trying to stay ahead of him. It didn’t always work, and when that happened, he blamed himself. I was the only person who tried to tell him otherwise. Even the king didn’t truly understand until after the Redgrass Field.”</p><p> </p><p>For a few moments, there was no sound but the faraway chatter of ravens. Lady Melissa had grown pale as Shiera spoke, her hands twisting at her waist. Brynden did that too, sometimes. “He never told you about that,” Shiera finally said.</p><p> </p><p>Lady Melissa shook her head. “I wanted to come to King’s Landing, to help in whatever way I could, but Brynden wouldn’t hear of it. There was fighting all over the Riverlands and in the west, between Fireball and the Lannisters.”</p><p> </p><p>“I remember. He was frightened for you. He knew no force allied to Bittersteel would show Raventree Hall any mercy.” She remembered, too, Brynden’s interventions to shift the movements of armies in this or that direction, careful to nudge them away from his family’s home.</p><p> </p><p>“You protected him when I couldn’t.” Lady Melissa took Shiera’s hand, and when Shiera glanced at her, she saw tears in the older woman’s eyes. “I thank you for that.”</p><p> </p><p>“He would do the same for me if I needed it,” said Shiera. “I care for him very much.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m glad of that. Gladder still that you understand him. Most do not.” Lady Melissa drew the dark red shawl more closely around her shoulders. “And it seems you have your own eccentricities.”</p><p> </p><p>“I am lucky that I can afford them,” replied Shiera. “Brynden and I indulge one another equally.”</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t want a family together?” She was frowning at Shiera in a wholly familiar way; Queen Myriah had worn the same expression every time Shiera turned down a prospective suitor, and she had a speech prepared.</p><p> </p><p>“Some of us aren’t meant for motherhood. My mother wasn’t given the choice, but I was, and I intend to take it.”</p><p> </p><p>She did not realise that she had been playing with the necklace until Lady Melissa remarked upon it. “I’ve been admiring it all evening. It’s so unusual and lovely.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a history of sorts,” said Shiera, unwinding her own shawl so the necklace glinted in the moonlight. She pointed to each stone and explained its origin as Lady Melissa listened, sometimes smiling, sometimes with a sniff or a bark of laughter.</p><p> </p><p>By the time Shiera made it back to her bedchamber, it was well past midnight and she and Lady Melissa were giggling like little girls. Brynden’s mother pulled her into a billowing embrace. “I am glad you found my son,” she said. “If you break his heart...”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera smiled. “I’ve cared for it all these years. I mean to do so for many more.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>More, more, more</em>,” came the echoing call of a raven from outside the window.</p><p> </p><p>“Stop spying, Brynden,” Shiera retorted with a roll of her eyes, and she and his mother shared another laugh before Shiera bid her goodnight.</p><p> </p><p>Her dreams were soft like black featherdown, and she welcomed them.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Aegon Targaryen and Betha Blackwood</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Year 220 after the Conquest</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Aside from the season, nothing about Raventree Hall had changed in the nearly twenty years since Shiera had last passed beneath its gates. The ravens still probed at her presence before grudgingly accepting it as the price for Brynden’s proximity. Lady Melissa was still waiting to greet them, only now she leant on a staff and her hair was almost entirely white.</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t need to say it,” Brynden told his mother, who glared at him and shook her head. Instead, she greeted Shiera with a hug.</p><p> </p><p>“I try,” Shiera whispered. “He’s hopeless.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t I know it,” muttered Lady Melissa. “Now, I need your help. Betha’s hair is a fright and she’s threatening to cut it off.”</p><p> </p><p>“Never you fear,” Shiera assured her. “I know just the thing.”</p><p> </p><p>“I made her promise not to do anything until you arrived. Your reputation still precedes you, and all of Betha’s sisters and cousins are dying to meet you.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera waved idly at Brynden as Lady Melissa took her arm and led her off toward the bride’s rooms. She did not see Brynden until she tiptoed into their shared bedchamber well after midnight, tipsy from Arbor gold and full of Riverlands gossip, at least some of which was potentially useful to the crown.</p><p> </p><p>Brynden was standing by the window, gazing out at the godswood. “Aerys did this on purpose,” he said, without turning around. “There was something in that week’s delivery from the Citadel library and he didn’t want me to see it, so he sent me on this fool’s errand.”</p><p> </p><p>“Your mother asked you to come,” Shiera reminded him as she kicked off her slippers and sat at the dressing table. “I believe that some time away from King’s Landing will do you good.” He had been brooding furiously ever since the raven arrived from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea to report that the ship carrying the condemned Aegor Rivers from King’s Landing had been intercepted, and Aegor spirited away to the Free Cities to continue his accursed plotting against the crown. “And, besides, you are Hand of the King and your presence at this marriage can serve as a sign of the crown’s approval.”</p><p> </p><p>“A wilful boy and a wilful girl, from all I’ve heard,” said Brynden. He crossed to her side and began to unlace her gown. “They’ll suit one another. Prince Maekar could have delivered the crown’s approval. It didn’t need to be me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Stop grumbling. This is good for you.” Shiera stood, the gown tumbling from her shoulders. Brynden was appropriately distracted, and she took his face in her hands. “It’s a good match. She’ll take care of him, and he adores her. That giant knight of his likes her too.”</p><p> </p><p>“You give them both too much credit.”</p><p> </p><p>“Let them be. Just because we lost our childhoods for our father’s folly doesn’t mean all children must. You’ve done well enough. The gods willing, Aerys will putter around in his library for another twenty years, and then Maekar will rule after him.”</p><p> </p><p>“And put me into retirement,” Brynden said ominously. “Maekar has no love for me.”</p><p> </p><p>“However he feels about you as a man, he acknowledges your worth as a Hand.” Shiera rose on tiptoe to kiss him. “Now, if you’re finished complaining, I can think of far more enjoyable ways to end this evening.”</p><p> </p><p>The next day, Prince Aegon Targaryen married Lord Roland Blackwood’s daughter Betha beneath the enormous weirwood tree in the heart of Raventree Hall’s godswood. The bride wore a white gown bordered in red and black, with what Shiera knew were actual raven’s feathers worked into the embroidery. Her own raven-black hair—smooth and shiny after several hours of Shiera’s efforts—tumbled over her shoulders from a plaited crown woven through with red and white ribbons. The Blackwood bride’s cloak had a glorious, high collar made of raven feathers, and Shiera sighed a little when Betha put it aside for the comparatively shabby Targaryen dragon. Before the ceremony, she had unhooked from her necklace a single pigeon’s-blood ruby and pinned it to the front of Betha’s gown.</p><p> </p><p>“For joy in love and bed,” she murmured. “Just make sure to return it tomorrow.” The ruby glimmered against the white wool gown like the face slashed into the weirwood behind them as they swore their oaths to one another.</p><p> </p><p>During the banquet, Brynden found her as she watched the bride and the groom dance. “Is Lady Betha wearing the ruby I gave you?”</p><p> </p><p>“For good fortune, they say a bride should wear one thing borrowed, and it looks wonderful with her gown.”</p><p> </p><p>“It looks better on you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course it does. I should be very hurt if you thought otherwise.” After a moment, she realised he hadn’t heard her, that he was lost in contemplation. She wanted to ask him what he was seeing—the past, the future, some faraway glimpse of a world well lost. Instead, she retreated from the great hall and, without realising it at first, made her way toward the godswood.</p><p> </p><p>The wedding guests had trampled a path of sorts through the trees to the great weirwood and its sharp-eyed inhabitants. Shiera came to a stop in the clearing and gazed up at the white branches. Then, taking a deep breath, she forced her mind to stillness and imagined the ravens looking back at her, every one of their eyes trained upon her.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you trying to do?” Brynden’s voice echoed from behind her. “Put them to sleep?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera sighed. “You get to see through ravens’ eyes. I thought I’d see if they’d let me try.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s bold of you,” he replied, laughter roughening his voice. “Do you truly want that, Shiera?”</p><p> </p><p>“Want what?”</p><p> </p><p>“To see what I see.”</p><p> </p><p>“I have <em>always</em> wanted that,” she said without hesitation. “I’ve always wondered what it looked like, what it felt like.”</p><p> </p><p>“What what felt like?”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Magic</em>, Brynden. Real magic. What I do isn’t magic, no matter what people whisper. You know that better than anyone. But you...” she caught her breath. “I know what it does to you, the price you pay for it, but...I want to know.”</p><p> </p><p>“If I could show you, I would,” he said after a few moments. From the darkness came the rustling of feathers, an occasional <em>quork</em>. “They pull me away from this world, with only you to draw me back. My star, to light me home.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiera kissed him. “Always.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Between various references and the Wiki, I’ve decided on 180AC as the year of Shiera’s birth, which makes her four years old when Aegon IV legitimizes her on his deathbed, and sixteen at the time of the First Blackfyre Rebellion. We know a lot about what she looked like but not very much about the relationships she had with the people around her—well, aside from Bloodraven and, to a lesser extent, Bittersteel. I’ve taken the liberty of developing relationships between her and the women around her, as well as her friendship with Bloodraven. For the source(s) of Shiera’s necklace, I’m inspired by <b>SecondStarontheLeft</b> in <a>Where a shadow took my place</a>.</p><p>Shiera’s place in the royal household would have been a tenuous and complicated one, where she is legitimate—and therefore eligible for privileges, lands, monies, etc—but not within the line of succession. That is part of why Daemon Blackfyre’s case is so problematic, as the prescribed rules are repeatedly bent for him.</p><p>I’ve had to do a fair bit of speculating on the relationships between various members of the Blackwood family, but what I ended up with is that Lord Roland Blackwood (who is mentioned in <i>The Hedge Knight</i> as a participant in the Ashford Tourney) is Melissa Blackwood’s nephew, Bloodraven’s cousin, and the father of Black Betha, who marries the future Aegon V.</p><p>We are given no indication in canon of when Shiera Seastar or Melissa Blackwood died, so I’ve taken the liberty of having both of them alive in 220 when Aegon marries Betha. My headcanon for this fic is that Shiera dies at some point before Maekar I in 233, and that her absence contributes to Bloodraven’s poor choices toward the end of his Handship.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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